fully automatic

so after being killed and captured a total of 47 times in the span of 12 hours because every armchair politico and journalism school failure wanted to be first to break the news, which only ended up causing a massive pandemic of false alarms, there is finally some certainty that the old colonel is no longer in control of the country he’s strongarmed for the last 42 years. now we can procede to play a hilarious game of where’s waldo as nobody knows where the fuck he is.

i’m no fan of gaddafi. i think he’s a complete asshole. but there is no way i am convinced that removing him from libya is suddenly going to transform libya into some progressive human rights haven that follows the rule of law and respects fundamental human rights. we saw the toppling of saddam in iraq, and the removal of the taliban in afghanistan, the regime change in egypt, and countless other examples in modern history. cutting the head off the dragon doesn’t result in shit changing. people just end up partying for a few days, and then it all goes back to the way it was, or as is most often the case, things end up being worse.

the problem with ‘regime change’ is that it’s become completely meaningless in the modern context. the leader may change, but the underlying infrasture, the power base, the culture, social values, belief systems, et al, remains the same. gaddafi held libya at his mercy with an iron fist, but let’s not be delusional and think it was only him. he had a large supporting cast. we saw the same thing happen in egypt — mubarak is finally gone, and there was much rejoicing, but the arab spring has continued into an arab summer as people sobered up and realised that the changes promised were not delivered because mubarak’s heir apparents weren’t really all that different — i mean, how could they be? these are the same men who were raised in the same culture that that mubarak fostered.

it’s easy to replace a leader, but it takes generations to change culture, especially when it has been so deeply embedded into a nation’s institutions for so long, making it a remarkably stubborn beast of burden, and will take years of forward-thinking people to make sure things don’t revert back to the way it was. when the dust settles in libya, we’ll see how much resolve the rebels have when the clear target of gaddafi is gone, and a much more esoteric vision of a progressive libya is the next challenge. modern history has shown that the leader was only a mini-boss, and culture is the final boss.

i have a good amount of downtime here at work. especially in the last stretch of the afternoon. i can usually get almost all my assigned tasks down a little bit after lunch. my supervisor is an awesomely lazy guy who knows that giving me more work is more work for him, so i’m given a lot of free reign.

most of the time, i just end up reading newspapers, my twitter feed, and facebook. usually, i end up getting caught up with what’s going on in american politics, especially now that we’re in the throes of pre-election attention-whoring by potential GOP candidates. michele bachmann and rick perry are my two favourite sources of entertainment, with an occasional dash of rick santorum (who just offered an incredible solution for affordable healthcare: lower your mobile bill — http://t.co/Zxyhuhh), and of course, for dessert, a sprinkle of obama’s painfully ineffectual term in office thusfar.

now that rick perry’s ridiculous ‘prayer rally’ is over with — which happened while a hundred thousand impoverished texans were lined up trying to get free school supplies, of which a vast majority got turned away because they got 5x more people than they expected (http://bit.ly/n40cjV) — i’m wondering if it’s just my cynicism, or do people actually genuinely believe that prayer can actually solve real problems in the real world?

i’ve never been a particularly religious guy. i was raised catholic, and did all the proper catholic things up until i was around 12 years old and decided i hated the smell of old people and being told i’m probably going to go to hell because everything that seemed fun also happened to make god want to smite you. my parents were surprisingly abiding about my journey toward religious independence (it probably had to do with the my dad’s buddhist influence wearing down my mom’s conservative catholic beliefs).

i remember distinctly praying from time to time for things that i really wanted. god was not so much some omniscient deity as a kind of parallel entity akin to santa claus for me. but i don’t remember at any point — even at that age — being entirely convinced that praying would ever work for anything, ever. mostly because god kept shutting me down every time i asked him for video games.

it’s hard for me to think that politicians like rick perry & michele bachmann (among others) believe prayer works as a force for change. my cynicism tells me it’s just a ploy driven by a populistic need to rally the evangelical right. the religious right in america has grown unbelievably powerful in the decade and a half since i’ve started paying attention to politics. it almost feels like the movement started off as an inside joke that has since spiraled out of control.

i understand that religion can be a very powerful force in one’s personal life, but when that religious beliefs starts fucking around with people’s lives, i can’t help but worry about what this might lead to. it seems like ‘prayer’ has become an actual, real, tangible policy choice by a growing number of politicians and their supporters. instead of actual healthcare reform, they suggest prayer. instead of poverty reduction, pray. instead of stopping famine, pray instead. and we all know what happens, from countless examples in history, when people in power think they have been put there by god…

i try to be tolerant and open-minded about religion, and i’m sorry it has come to this, but please do some actual work, and most importantly, fuck your prayers.

i think i have always been a little bit in love with her. i should have told her that. i should have told her a lot of things, but i think this was the one thing that could have changed how things worked out between us. i remember feeling that eventually there would be this perfect moment to lay it all down at her feet.

before i knew it, we both grew up, and all that time i had been saving stopped feeling so inexhaustible, stopped being this immutable thing that would always be there when i needed it. as the story goes, that perfect moment never came. looking back, i’m not sure it was ever on its way.

if she read this now, i am sure she would call me an idiot for believing such a moment could possibly exist. she would tell me that everything always runs its course eventually because time can only move in one direction. so regardless of how much faith i put in grand theories of relativity, when it comes to a girl like her, i am pretty sure ‘not enough’ is the most anyone is ever allowed to have.

in its own brutally unsatisfying way, this leaves things open to the possibility that maybe, one day, she and i might pick up where we left off because i was told once that two points of any given circle are always bound by the forces of nature to converge again and again and again ad infinitum.

however, i have found that when time runs its course, it seems only cynicism disguised as sentimentality remains, and i am unconvinced these equations will ever resolve such a broken geometry.

with the debt limit finally going to the vote, i can’t think of any significant piece of legislation that has passed in the last three years that obama can call his own.

i’ve had this creeping feeling that he has drank so heavily from his cup of “reaching across the aisle”, that he’s willing to sell out his base just to get anything “done” — especially with his health care bill that got watered down to ‘obamacare’, a shadow of its former self that completely erased any snifflings of a public option.

now with this debt limit deal does almost nothing for the people who need it, and much of it will be determined later in later congressional hearings.

while i am completely sure that this whole ‘debt limit’ talk has only been a big deal because a (black) democrat is running the country (it was raised 8 times under bush (2000–2008), and a whopping 14 times under reagan, all with pretty much zero press coverage), i just don’t understand the long-term viability of obama’s administration. it just seems every compromise he’s made is just another step towards catastrophic failure come election time next year.

every compromise he’s made will come back to bite him in the ass, from both the left and the right. the right will expose all the failures of said legislation (stimulus package, health care, the way the wars were handled), and the left will talk about how they really haven’t benefited from anything he’s done (and they are right to say so).

he seems to have not learned that ‘compromise’ in american politics generally lends itself to pissing off both sides of the political spectrum because both will say they did not get a big enough piece of the pie. thus, he is in extreme danger of alienating his base. even his most ardent supporters in the “liberal” media have questioned whether or not he even has a pair of balls to stand up for anything he said during his campaign.

it’s pretty sad that a country like the united states, with its diverse culture of ideas, has absolutely zero viable progressive alternatives. unless he actually starts flexing some muscle, i get the feeling that obama’s only supporters come 2012 will be because his party affliation does not say ‘republican’ beside his name, and that’s a shitty reason to vote for anyone.

she asked for an explanation. it was the hardest i had to think for a long time. she made it worse by sitting there, being patient. of all the things should could have done — screamed, cried, throw a punch — she did her worst with a slow, measured, muted question. ‘why?’

a long time ago, i listened to a lecture about the universe. it was about its history and its future, and its state of increasing and accelerated expansion. it was about supernovae, stellar remnants, and near-invisible particles called neutrinos. it explained why the sky is dark at night, and how billions and billons and billions of years from now, every star in the night sky fades into the black, and that the natural imperative of an expanding universe is a journey towards utter oblivion. cold nothingness. infinite emptiness. all evidence that we were ever here and did anything that ever mattered would be irreparably destroyed.

physicists call this entropy.

i remember vividly the bemusement i felt as i sat on that stone slab, looking up at her as she sat on the hood of the car with her arms folded across her. i almost laughed out loud, thinking how ridiculous i’d sound trying to preface my answer to her question with a story about the unstoppable and wholly nihilistic fate of the universe that eventually will turn everything to nothing. but it was all i had, and even knowing i had the unbreakable clockwork of thermodynamics on my side, she deserved more.

they always deserve more, these ones.

it can’t help make you wonder what kind of guy you are to throw something like this away. but you don’t think about it that way when that pretty face is staring right at you, wide-eyed, alerting you that her bullshit detector on its most sensitive setting, waiting to hear something that won’t make her feel like she’s just wasted a good chunk of her life for a deadbeat who can’t answer a simple one word question.

no, all you can think about in moments like these is how to say something that won’t make you feel like a complete asshole when that final word leaves your mouth and vibrates off the inside of her ear canal. ‘i’m sorry,’ is all you can say because you can’t win in a universe that’s determined to break everything.

then you wait.

and you hope.

and you discover she is the one girl you meet in your life that does transcend all the known laws of an unforgiving cosmos because she is your very own big bang, proving that sometimes, when certain conditions are met, something can come from nothing.

i’m not sure what compelled me to call her. i had been thinking about her for days now. something about the combination of stifling boredom i feel when i’m not given enough work to do on hot summer days with too many hours, surrounded by the bustle of people i should know but don’t, told me i could not be alone, not today, not right now. out of the hundred or so numbers in my phone, most of which i’ll never call again, something told me it had to be her. mostly because i knew she could never say no to me. her heart was always as big as the universe, and even after all these years, that was something that would never change.

we met in a tiny coffee shop on bank street, a relic in a part of the city that was almost entirely consumed by gentrification, where rising office towers cast dark shadows over the small windows. we sat in a corner booth, on sofas with worn but neatly mended upholstery. in an age where restaurant furniture was designed to get you out of your chair in fifteen minutes, the way i sunk into that cushioned seat was a welcomed change, like i was being invited to stay.

she sat across from me with her hands clasped together, smiling. her eyes were brighter than supernova. the right side of her collar was upturned, a victim of the fierce hug i had given her as she stepped off the number 1 bus. her squeal of delight still rung in my ear. it had been a while since someone was so happy to see me. i almost forgot how amazing it was to feel that from someone again. the lone waitress interrupted our staring contest.

she ordered green tea. i said the same. she raised an eyebrow.

‘i’ve started drinking it,’ i told her.

her eyes were asking for an explanation, but there wasn’t any. soon, we began arguing over when was the ‘last time’. she guessed it was at least three years. i offered four, but she shook her head adamantly. she explained it could not have been four years because we still had a class together then. she threatened to pull out her laptop and forage through her gmail.

‘you kept all of those?’ i asked, incredulous.

‘they keep themselves,’ she replied matter-of-factly. ‘google deletes nothing!’

‘ever go back and read them??’

‘i forgot all about them until just now.’

she held her cup delicately in both hands, almost as if it were a small child. thin wisps of steam rose as she sipped quietly, all the while never taking her eyes off of me. i eyed her back suspiciously.

‘why did you call me?’ she asked first. ‘don’t get me wrong, i’m happy to hear from you, but it just feels so sudden.’

i told her i had been thinking about her for a few days now. i told her i had just moved back to the city a couple months ago, back to a city i grew up in, but over the years, has since outgrown me, and i needed someone to remind me where i came from, that i hadn’t been completely left behind. more importantly, she was one of the few people i knew who still had the same number.

‘more importantly, i wanted to see if you were still pretty.’

‘and?’

‘not bad,’ i paused for dramatic effect, ‘i guess.’

she grinned and pretended to take offence. ‘glad to see you’re still a jerk.’

after a while i told her how i ruined something good. ‘really unbelievably good.’ i paused to rehearse the story in my head. ‘i met this girl. actually, before i met her, i woke up one day, and realized i was completely miserable. i hated my job. i hated where my life was going. then i met her. i met this incredible girl at the worst possible time, and when i decided i needed to get my shit together, i cut her out. it wasn’t a concious decision. one day of neglect led to another. before i knew it, six months had passed. it was surgical, precise, cold turkey. i just stopped.’

‘you were always good at that,’ she said. ‘so why didn’t you call her instead of me?’

‘i did,’ i told her. ‘i tried to explain myself. fix things. we’re talking again, but i don’t think things will go back to the way they used to be.’

‘of course they don’t. you don’t pull that kind of shit to someone you care about.’

‘i told her before it all started that i have a bad habit of closing up. she said she remembered, but never thought i’d do it to her. i felt like a complete asshole.’

‘you are a complete asshole.’

i explained that i always operated under the assumption that when you meet someone, especially when you think it’s the right one, there was this biological imperative that you would naturally make the changes necessary to make things work out. ‘it’s not that i lose interest. i don’t know. it seems like such a cop out to say i have commitment issues-’

‘which you do,’ she interjected.

‘but even when i know i have a good going, i always find a way to royally fuck things up.’

she shrugged and tilted her head. i braced myself for her four year degree in psychology to pour over me like a southeast asian monsoon, but she was surprisingly economical. ‘i don’t know when it was, but when we were dating, i started feeling that we weren’t going to last very long. it wasn’t your fault, and i know it definitely wasn’t mine, but you never came across to me as the kind of guy who can stick around in one place — and i don’t mean physically — for very long. you need someone to fill in the empty spaces of your life, and when those spaces close up, that someone gets squeezed out.’

i gave it some thought. ‘so not only am i a complete asshole, i’m a selfish prick too.’

‘pretty much,’ she said, almost giggling.

it’s been a few months since the last one. this is a collection of shiny sounding summer beats. electric and swerving. back to the basics of pretty instrumentals, trip hop, smoky bass, and sultry vocals. best served at an afterparty… or the long walks home at stupid o’clock after a messy but fulfilling night.

mixtapes by alx: one shiny summer

1. Late Night Fruit — Marang (1:20)
2. Berry Weight — Yeti’s Lament (3:30)
3. Inspired Flight — It Always Takes (4:08)
4. PHANTOGRAM — As Far as I Can See (3:29)
5. Deceptikon — Way of the Samurai (4:05)
6. Doctor Flake — Melting Feelings (3:09)
7. sayCeT — We Walk Fast (3:46)
8. School of Seven Bells — Half Asleep (4:20)
9. Sleigh Bells — Rill Rill (3:49)
10. Smile Smile — Beg You to Stay (2:37)
11. Wax Tailor — Dry Your Eyes (feat. Sara Genn) (3:41)

running time: 38 minutes

download: http://vexed.ca/2010–06/mixtapes-by-alx-one-shiny-summer/

some days, i am just one bad decision after another.

she peeked around the corner. the dimming lamp hanging above lit her red hair on fire, and glinted its light off her eye. i recognised that glint only as mischief.

‘i can see you,’ i said.

she feigned alarm that i noticed she was there. after stepping out into full view and dramatically placing her arms on her hips and frowning, i nodded her over. she slowly sauntered toward me, exaggerating her movements, swinging one foot in front of the other with both hands clasped behind her. she could have been drunk, but this one was always a great actress. i could tell she was hiding something, and the sharp corner of the left side of her mouth told me it was probably nothing good.

‘i got a surprise for you…’ she purred, stretching out the last word conspiratorially. she pivoted and leaned against the wall beside me. i took a long swig from the wine bottle and offered it to her. she shook her head. ‘aren’t you going to ask me what it is?’ she pouted a little.

she looked up with eyes wide open, big and round, sparkling… no, glinting mischief still. and as always, in all the years i’ve known her, i submitted. ‘what is it?’

she let out a cackle and she pulled out a pack of cigarettes from behind her.

‘oh jeez. really?’ i rolled my eyes. ‘what are you, fourteen?’

her glare morphed into an accusation. ‘you used to smoke! besides, the owner got drunk and passed out somewhere. it is only right we put these suckers to good use.’

‘figures. you were always one for long, slow, torturous deaths.’

‘only with you’, she replied, sounding much too chipper. ‘want to smoke some with me?’

‘since when do you smoke?’

‘i don’t,’ she said plainly.

‘clearly.’

‘come on,’ she persisted. ‘i wanna be bad.’

‘you are always bad.’

‘i am not! how dare you say such thing to me,’ she said while deftly flicking open the top of the pack. i guess she isn’t drunk, i thought. she lifted the pack toward her mouth, and tried to pull one out to her lips. four cigarettes spilled onto her face and dropped to the ground. okay, maybe she is a little. undeterred by my mocking laughter, she pulled two out with her fingers, and offered one to me. i took both from her.

‘hey!’ she cried.

‘relax. do you even have a lighter?’ i pulled out my red zippo, lit both and handed one back to her.

‘thanks,’ she said grudgingly.

we stood there and took long drags in silence. i tilted my head and bounced it lightly against the aluminium siding of the house. i could feel the vibrations of the deep fuzzy bass emanating from somewhere in the basement. i started thinking about how i had known this girl for almost six years now, and this was the first time i had ever smoked anything with her. we were always talkers, her and i, but that can only take you so far. by some unseen force, there was suddenly a four year separation between us getting reacquainted last month and the last time we spoke. real life had somehow wedged its way between us, but now we stood outside in the backyard of someone’s bungalow, at a house party filled with a bunch of her friends, all of whom were mostly mostly strangers to me, her and i strung together again by a miraculous set of serendipitous coincidences. i could not shake the feeling of how the same things felt, how comfortably it all fell back into place, like it was only yesterday we were embarrassing ourselves in rooms full of strangers, flirting like we would eventually take each other seriously. of course, we never did.

‘where’s jon?’ i asked, stamping out the first cigarette. she immediately passed me another.

‘don’t know. somewhere in there,’ she replied, with vague disinterest in her voice.

i raised an eyebrow. ‘trouble in paradise, eh?’

she shrugged. i could tell she did not want to continue this line of questioning and silence fell between us again. i watched her flick the butt end of her cigarette into the darkness of the yard. like a snake, she snatched the lighter out of my hand and lit another one. i watched her chest expand as she took a drag and exhaled a long slow mist into the night air.

‘careful, red. you might start liking this.’

‘i kind of do,’ she said solemnly. ‘thanks for coming, by the way. i know this probably isn’t your crowd.’

i laughed. ‘yeah, not really. but i figure i’d make an appearance so i don’t need to deal with the hours of whining and guilt-tripping you’d put me through.’

‘hey, i don’t whine!’ she protested. i grinned. ‘you’re such a dick,’ she finished, breaking into a laugh.

‘only with you.’

‘and a liar,’ she countered. ‘don’t make me hit you.’

‘even if you did, it wouldn’t hurt. you’re too skinny and you punch like a girl.’

she suddenly threw a right cross into my shoulder, catching me by surprise. she scowled defiantly. ‘i might be skinny, but i’m pointy. and i know that hurt.’ and turned her head and raised her chin like how all proper girls are taught to do when feeling indignant.

i rubbed my shoulder. ‘has anyone told you how mean you are?’

‘i’m really nice to everyone else.’

she wore a green dress with a small belt that accentuated how tiny her waist was. the green emphasized the red of her hair, and the paleness of her skin. she carried a certain waifish dignity to her that, in equal parts, made her look vulnerable and understated, but also there was a lot of pride in the slightly upturned chin and in her voice, a quiet strength. laughter always came easily to her, and when she did, her shoulders shook gracefully. but her most mesmerising talent was her skill in conversation. this one could never be caught at a loss for words. always measured, always unsurprised.

‘you should dump him,’ i finally said after a time. she didn’t reply immediately. i was silently wagering whether she was offended, or was actually seriously considering the idea.

‘you always say that,’ she said, sounding very serious.

‘i’m just jealous.’

‘and you should stop saying shit like that.’ now she sounded genuinely angry. ‘anyway, how come you never tell me about any of the girls you’re seeing? i know there have been a lot. because you’re such a whore.’

that made me laugh. she stood there unimpressed.

‘i’m serious,’ she said. ‘how come?’

i realised i felt dizzy from the nicotine. reflexively, i took another long drag to collect myself, making the lightheaded feeling worse. she was not going to let me get out of this one easily, and the impatience in her eyes told me that i would probably get hit again if i did not say something that sounded at least a little bit honest.

‘i don’t know,’ i started. she looked at me pensively. ‘i guess… ’ i dragged it out, ‘i just don’t think of anyone else when i’m with you.’

she looked down at her feet. i could not tell if she was trying her best to stifle a laugh — she never used to take things like that seriously. but four years can change a lot. instead of the laughter i was expecting, a small ‘oh’ escaped from her lips.

i continued, trying my best to give away the struggle. ‘yeah… i don’t know… i remember the first time we met, i knew you were dangerous immediately. i was with denise at the time, and you were with god knows who anymore-’

‘mark,’ she interjected.

‘yeah, that guy. the timing was never right. we both got busy.’

‘i was never that busy. you just took off.’

‘you never seemed all that interested, anyway.’

‘not interested!’ she sounded exasperated. ‘you were the one fucking anything that moved. how could i have taken you seriously?’

‘okay, okay. it was my fault.’

‘it’s always your fault.’

i let out a small laugh. ‘i think i just got really comfortable with the way things were between us. maybe not comfortable… more like, i liked the safety in the way things were. distant but not out of reach. you were the one girl i was the most scared to get to know. i could never treat you like i treated the other ones. i could never talk to you like i could talk to someone else. and i know that if i got to know you better… anyway, all of that, put together, i felt like doing nothing was the best course of action.’

‘so you disappeared,’ she said.

‘i doubt you turned into a weeping mess without me.’

‘no. but i still would have preferred it if you actually made an effort to keep in touch once in a while.’

‘hey, who hunted who down after all these years. besides, you’ve done fine for yourself. had to let you practise with all the other boys so that i’d seem a lot more incredible when we’d eventually meet up again.’

she put her hands on her hips, ‘oh, you were so certain we’d reunite, huh? why did you want to meet up again anyway?’

i took a deep breath. ‘something happened when i broke up with emily,’ i started. i do not know where it came from, but a part of my subconscious probably realised that i had squandered so many opportunities to be honest with her, that now might be my last chance — the proverbial all or nothing moment. i continued, ‘i spent an entire night sitting at the foot of my bed, and i just started thinking about the girls i had the most fun with, and you were always at the top of every conceivable list. i figure, you know, maybe… what the hell have i got to lose? more importantly, spending this last month, getting to know you all over again, everything about you is better than i remember.’

she looked angry. ‘god!’ she threw her hands up, and turned sharply toward me. i almost flinched, expecting another punch. instead she spoke. ‘you… fuck! damn it!’ she was almost screaming now, fists clenched. she closed her eyes and she visibly slowed her breathing. ‘i don’t know.’ she sounded suddenly resigned. ‘i don’t know how to know! but right now, i am ninety-nine percent in love with you.’

‘it’s mutual,’ i said quietly, stunned.

she found her way back against the wall with me. but this time, the foot of space between us disappeared, and i could feel her arm against mine, leaning gently against me. she lit up the two remaining cigarettes and tossed the empty pack over the hedge. the silence was different this time. it did not feel weighted down by things unsaid. instead, it was being drowned by the conversation that had just passed. for the first time, it finally felt like we managed to be honest to each other for any consequential length of time, and could finally enjoy the nearness of each other, comforted by mutual body heat on a chilly spring night.

after a time, long after the ashes of the last cigarette was flicked away, she stepped off the wall for the last time, taking my hand with both of hers and pulled me off. she tilted her head and spoke, ‘walk me home?’

‘no way.’

she rolled her eyes. ‘why?!’

‘okay, let’s go.’

there are few things more fun in life than talking about the universe with the pretty brunnette on the exercise bike beside you. i usually have my mp3 player with me, but i forgot to charge it last night. the battery died about 20 minutes in. i see her most mornings, but never on the bike — always on the treadmill or elliptical. we’ve never really spoken aside from the customary greetings. probably the magical hand of fate at play here.

i like it when a culmination of coincidences make some it seem like this is the way things are supposed to be. there’s nothing wrong smoke and mirrors occasionally.

she wants to take me ‘for tea’. i told her that sounds a little sophisticated for me. she said there’ll be lots of honey — not that i needed any more convincing.